Whether you believe in the paranormal or not ...

According to a 2005 Gallup Poll, about three of every four Americans
believe in at least one element of the paranormal, from ghosts and
haunted houses to reincarnation and astrology.

The most common paranormal belief is in extrasensory perception, or
ESP, in which 41 percent of Americans believe.

But close behind are haunted houses at 37 percent and ghosts at 31
percent.

For Barb Huyser, a paranormal investigator from Monmouth, a belief in
ghosts came from personal experience.

Hooked for life on ghosts
As a child, Huyser was interested in ghosts and hauntings and always
believed they existed.

But she didn’t begin investigating paranormal activity until she was
a psychology graduate student at Southern Illinois University
Edwardsville in the late 1970s.

“There were a number of us among the grad students who had an
interest in the paranormal,” Huyser said.

She and her classmates went to a deserted old house and found what
they believed to be evidence the place was haunted.

There was no electricity and no wiring in the house, but they found
unusual electromagnetic energy.
“It felt like an electrical shock,” Huyser said. “It was enough
to hook me for life.”

Huyser said she believes there is plenty of evidence that ghosts
exist, but she doesn’t try to argue with people who don’t believe
in ghosts.

“There are people out there for whom it wouldn’t matter if the
ghost of Abraham Lincoln walked up to them,” Huyser said. “It
falls completely outside anything they can accept with their religion
or they just don’t see any way it is possible.”

Wanting to believe
Doug Rankin has lived in a monstrous Queen Anne Victorian home on
East Broadway in Monmouth for 20 years. Family members and
houseguests have seen apparitions over the years.

His wife saw the reflection of a maid carrying towels down a hallway.

His father-in-law saw a male figure in a guest bedroom.

Once, at a party, the entire crowd heard a voice seemingly coming
from all directions yell “Stop!”

“That really creeped everyone out,” Rankin said.
And paranormal investigator Chris Fleming, host of the Biography
Channel show “Dead Famous,” visited the home last October and said
he believed the house was haunted.

While some family members and friends are convinced, Rankin said he
isn’t sure.

“I’m still skeptical, but I want to believe it,” he said.

“Some people just have really strong feelings about it.”

Rankin said when he tells people the tales about his house c the
majority of people don’t scoff, but seem willing to believe ghosts
exist.

“Very few people are skeptical,” Rankin said. “The more you see
it, the more you believe, or the more you want to believe, the more
you believe.”

Most ‘hauntings’ can be explained
Huyser said there is, more often than not, a non-paranormal
explanation for what people perceive as ghosts in their homes.

“Most of the calls I get, we’re able to find a cause for people to
believe the house is haunted, but it actually isn’t,” Huyser said.

That could be, for example, a strong electrical current in a room due
to wiring or a circuit-breaker box, Huyser said.

“When people are around high-energy fields, they can feel creeped
out,” Huyser said.

Other times, people think they may have captured ghostly orbs or
apparitions on film c but the film is double-exposed or smoke, light
or moisture has altered a photograph or video.

Rankin went so far as to bring home an infra-red camera and set it up
overnight in a room where people had seen apparitions and heard
strange things.

While the video shows orbs floating across the room, Rankin said it
could have been dust.

Other suspected haunted experiences can have commonplace explanations.
For instance, several times Rankin found an iron register grate in
his dining room pulled out of the floor and tossed across the room.
At first, he chalked it up to another unexplained – and possibly
ghostly – occurrence.

He later realized his large dog liked to sleep on the grate. The
dog’s tags would get tangled in the grate. When the dog stood up,
he’d pull the grate with him and drag it across the room.

Ghost-talk popular every Halloween
When Huyser doesn’t find an immediate, non-paranormal explanation
for what people perceive as ghosts in their homes, she calls in her
team of ghost hunters for further investigation, which includes
measuring electromagnetic fields, interviewing the family and
photographing or taping activity in the house.

She said there are certain places in the area – such as Hope Cemetery
in Galesburg – that have strong reputations for being haunted, but
most of her work are places she’s investigated but does not have
permission to reveal.

“As a general rule, people don’t want it known that their homes
are haunted,” Huyser said.

Huyser, author of “Small-town Ghosts,” will speak about her
experiences at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in room F118 at Carl Sandburg College.
She will talk about some of her investigations. Most recently, she
said, she has been investigating paranormal activity at Scooter’s
Bar and Grill in Aledo.

Huyser said interest in her work spikes in October, when ghosts and
spooky stories are on people’s minds

Whether or not Rankin ever fully believes his home is haunted, he
said it’s still fun to talk about c and the situation gives him a
reason to make the most of the season each October.

“We live for Halloween at our house,” he said. “We look forward
to it.”